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A 1969 GT500 that surfaced in Detroit in 2015 turned out to be far more than a rare production car — research confirmed it as the literal first Mustang built at Dearborn specifically for conversion into a Shelby prototype. Only four such prototypes were ever ordered. Read on for how three collectors pieced together nearly fifty years of hidden history.
1969 marked the last year of the original Camaro body style, and Chevrolet used it to hide some of its rarest performance options in plain sight. Behind identical SS and RS badges sat everything from a mild 350 small-block to a barely-advertised 427 built for the drag strip. Only a handful of buyers knew enough to ask for the right code on the order form. These photos, courtesy of Gateway Classic Cars, capture one of the last true first-generation Camaros before the redesign.
David Zuber brought his supercharged 1965 Chevrolet El Camino to the Cleveland Auto Show, and the new metal on the floor barely got a glance from him. The El Camino’s story runs from a short-lived 1959 debut on Chevrolet’s full-size platform to a Chevelle-based reinvention that turned it into a genuine muscle car in a truck’s clothing. Its factory engine lineup topped out well below what Zuber’s build produces today. Read on to find out what it takes to push a 1965 coupe-utility into 900-horsepower territory.
A camouflaged Mustang mule caught testing on public roads turned out to be hiding a supercharged version of Ford’s 5.2 litre Voodoo V8. Three years later the production Shelby GT500 landed with 760 horsepower, no manual gearbox, no convertible and no sunroof. Here is what the spy shots were actually pointing at, and why Ford made every one of those decisions on purpose.
Ford got to the pony car market more than two years before Chevrolet did, and it has been holding that head start over Camaro owners ever since. Chevrolet’s counterargument is that arriving late let it arrive better sorted. Sixty years of Trans-Am racing, back-door dealer specials, cancellations, and revivals later, only one of the two is still in production. Read on for how the rivalry actually played out, decade by decade.
Deep in an Oregon junkyard, sixty-year-old Mustangs, Camaros, and Chevelles sit exactly where they were left — picked over, rusting, and quietly disappearing under moss and rain. The person filming admits he takes a strange delight in documenting the decay, and the footage explains why: this is American muscle car history dying in slow motion, one panel at a time. Watch to see exactly what the Pacific Northwest weather has done to these forgotten cars.
A Mustang, a Camaro, and a Challenger lined up together is not just a photo, it is the same argument muscle car fans have been having since the 1960s. Ford started the pony car category almost by accident in 1964, Chevy and Dodge spent decades answering back, and the rivalry between all three is still what pushes each brand to build better cars. Here is the short history behind a fight that has never actually been settled.
Bolting GT badges onto a base Mustang takes ten minutes. Telling a genuine factory GT from a well-executed clone takes a good deal longer, and the tells are not where most buyers look. A VIN digit, a stamped reinforcement plate, a gas cap and a rear valance will settle the argument faster than any emblem. Here is what to check, in what order, before the money changes hands.
Renderings of a modern Ford Torino keep circulating online, and the reason has less to do with the artwork than with the original car’s unfinished story. Ford’s intermediate muscle car won a Car of the Year award, rewrote NASCAR aerodynamics, and then vanished into a badge nobody remembers. Read on for what the real Torino was, why it disappeared, and why no production revival has ever been confirmed.
Ford put its 429 big-block under a Mustang hood for exactly one model year, and only a sliver of 1971 production actually got it. Fewer still received the Drag Pack that turned a Cobra Jet into a Super Cobra Jet — four-bolt mains, big-valve heads, and an 11.3:1 compression ratio that demanded premium fuel and a careful hand. This Mach 1 is one of them. Read on for the numbers behind one of the rarest Mustang combinations Ford ever shipped.
Muscle cars run on a simple formula: big power, small price. Japan never quite matched that formula until Infiniti’s 2018 Q50 Red Sport 400 showed up with 400 horsepower, four doors, and a price tag tens of thousands below what a GT-R or RC F demands. First-drive reviewers loved the power but split hard on one specific detail. Here’s what stood out.
A 1965 Shelby GT350 was built to win races, not flatter showroom shoppers — and this 2016 GT350R from The Brothers Collection is the rare modern Shelby fans say actually lives up to that history. No turbo, no supercharger, just a flat-plane V8 that would rather rev than lean on boost. Black satin paint, red pinstripes, and carbon fiber wheels round out a car commenters are calling the best Mustang ever built. What is it about this specific combination that keeps convincing longtime skeptics?
Ford promised the 2018 Mustang GT would be the fastest Mustang the company had ever built, and the 5.0-liter V8 jumped to 460 horsepower to back it up. But hitting the sub-four-second number required a very specific options list that most buyers never checked. Here is what was actually in that combination, why the claim needed an asterisk, and how quickly the 2020 GT500 took the title away.
Every meme poking fun at fuel economy sits on top of a real and fairly dramatic piece of automotive history. Detroit spent the 1960s fighting a horsepower war with barely a thought for miles per gallon, until an oil embargo on the other side of the planet changed the rules overnight. The cars that once defined American performance suddenly looked wasteful next to imported compacts getting triple the mileage. That whiplash is still the punchline today, decades later.